Free Cure for the Common Universe by Christian McKay Heidicker

carefully prepared by Soup, and turning down his offer to apply my deodorant, I followed the shuffle of feet down the dead, fluorescent hallway to the Hub for Monday assembly. I kept my eyes on the floor the whole way, hoping to avoid any chance encounter with Scarecrow. I was anxious enough without seeing his crooked smile.
    In the Hub I quickly snagged a beanbag chair between Fezzik and Aurora so that Soup couldn’t sit next to me. While G-man took the stage and discussed personal accountability, I unzipped my adventure pouch and tried to make sense of my picture-based schedule through the fog of less than twelve hours of sleep.
    The week was packed with activities, each less appealing than the last. Still, I needed to speed-run this game, executing every class and chore perfectly, without ever having played it. Of course, if I could just win four golds in the tournaments . . . That wasn’t going to happen.
    Every day there were three class blocks—sports, life skills, and arts and music—but players could choose the kind of class within those categories that most appealed to them. The options for first block were jogging, aerobics, and the class obviously designed for lazy kids, tai chi. Jogging was worth the most points, so I circled it grudgingly. I continued to circle the most challenging classes throughout the week, until a shadow fell across my schedule.
    â€œYou’re my eggy daddy,” Meeki said.
    I looked up. The assembly had ended. The players were lined up at the stage, collecting eggs from G-man.
    â€œWere you not listening?” Meeki asked, then rolled her eyes before I could answer. “You’re already a terrible father.” She stuck an egg into my face. “You and I take care of this together. For every day that it doesn’t break, we get ten thousand points.”
    I narrowed my eyes at the egg, then at Meeki. I didn’t trust this. This was the girl who’d spent my first guild therapy session ridiculing absolutely everything I’d said.
    â€œWhy don’t you ask Aurora?” I said. “Y’know, because . . . y’know.”
    â€œFirst of all, she’s not my type. Second of all . . .” Meeki huffed. “Look, dude, do you want the points or not?”
    I looked at my schedule. Ten thousand points a day would really help me out.
    â€œOkay.”
    Meeki bit the lid off a marker and drew on the shell. “We trade off every day. I’ll take him first.” She showed me the egg. It had a face now. One eye was narrow like hers, one wide like mine. My half of the egg was smiling. Hers was in a scowl.
    â€œLooks just like us,” I said.
    â€œWhat are we going to name him?” she asked, annoyed.
    â€œDo we have to for points?”
    Meeki shook her head. “Terrible father,” she said, and left.
    Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I let my head flop back onto the beanbag chair and found Aurora cradling her own egg, decorated with constellations. She had wrapped a scarf around her head and spoke in a fragile voice. “You wouldn’t want to help a poor widowed mother out, would you?”
    â€œUm . . .”
    Aurora’s lip quivered.
    I hesitated, wondering if I could cheat by raising two eggsto earn double points. But then I remembered G-man deducting points from the Master Cheefs for bad sportsmanship. I couldn’t risk losing any points in the next four days.
    â€œI already told Meeki I would,” I said.
    Aurora nuzzled her egg. “Maybe we can get child support points. C’mon, Megg White.”
    She exited the Hub, leaving me feeling pretty studly that two girls wanted to raise eggs with me . . . until I remembered that their other options were Soup and Zxzord.
    Two small hands rubbed my arms from behind. “You hungry?” Soup said. “I could hear your stomach growling all meeting!”
    I shrugged him away. “I’m